Uploaded October 2024 | Updated September 2026, 55 minutes ago
Why did the Roman Empire fall? When did it fall? This is a question that has bedeviled historians and archaeologists for centuries, and arguably there isn't any end in sight for the search for that answer. Rome is an obsession of the modern world--if we can figure out why the Roman Empire fell, then we can save our own civilization.
Ben Shapiro, an American political commentator, recently put out a video exploring why the Roman Empire fell, and suggests that Rome and the present day United States resemble each other to a degree. Ben Shapiro lists the usual factors of degeneracy and licentiousness caused by wealth, a lack of civic virtue, and inflation as being among the prime causes for the collapse of Rome.
This video is a response to that and broadly outlines, economically, what actually happened, drawing on the scholarship of medievalists
SOURCES:
Barbarian Migrations & the Roman West, 376 - 568, Guy Halsall
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, Kyle Harper
Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284: The Critical Century, Clifford Ando
Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363, Jill Harries
Exploring the Economy of Late Antiquity, Jairus Banaji
The Inheritance of Rome, Chris Wickham
Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham
#facts #benshapiro
Why did the Roman Empire fall? When did it fall? This is a question that has bedeviled historians and archaeologists for centuries, and arguably there isn't any end in sight for the search for that answer. Rome is an obsession of the modern world--if we can figure out why the Roman Empire fell, then we can save our own civilization.
Ben Shapiro, an American political commentator, recently put out a video exploring why the Roman Empire fell, and suggests that Rome and the present day United States resemble each other to a degree. Ben Shapiro lists the usual factors of degeneracy and licentiousness caused by wealth, a lack of civic virtue, and inflation as being among the prime causes for the collapse of Rome.
This video is a response to that and broadly outlines, economically, what actually happened, drawing on the scholarship of medievalists
SOURCES:
Barbarian Migrations & the Roman West, 376 - 568, Guy Halsall
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, Kyle Harper
Imperial Rome AD 193 to 284: The Critical Century, Clifford Ando
Imperial Rome AD 284 to 363, Jill Harries
Exploring the Economy of Late Antiquity, Jairus Banaji
The Inheritance of Rome, Chris Wickham
Framing the Early Middle Ages, Chris Wickham
#facts #benshapiro
